The inventive concepts described herein relate to a semiconductor memory device, and more particularly, relate to a memory system including a nonvolatile memory device and an erase method thereof.
Semiconductor memory devices may be volatile or nonvolatile. Volatile semiconductor memory devices may perform read and write operations at high speed, while contents stored therein may be lost at power-off. Nonvolatile semiconductor memory devices may retain contents stored therein even at power-off. The nonvolatile semiconductor memory devices may be used to store contents which must be retained regardless of whether they are powered.
A flash memory device may be a typical nonvolatile semiconductor memory device. The flash memory device may be widely used as a voice and image data storing medium of information appliances, such as a computer, a cellular phone, a PDA, a digital camera, a camcorder, a voice recorder, an MP3 player, a handheld PC, a game machine, a facsimile, a scanner, a printer, and the like. In recent years, there may have been researched techniques for mass storage, high-speed input/output and low power of nonvolatile memory devices to be mounted on mobile devices including a smart phone.
The inventive concepts may provide an erase method of a nonvolatile memory device that is capable of lengthening its lifetime and/or improving reliability of data.